


What I See When I Look at You

by Elfen1012



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Confessions, Crimson Flower Spoilers, F/F, Freya!Ferdie mention, Post-Canon, nonbinary!Ingrid mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 05:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21386506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfen1012/pseuds/Elfen1012
Summary: Lysithea is the Wisdom of the Empire, the Emperor's chief adviser and constant companion despite just barely scratching twenty four, but struggles to contend with an Edeglard she loves but views her as a child. In a tantrum Lysithea says too much and what may will come.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Petra Macneary Mention, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Lysithea von Ordelia
Comments: 5
Kudos: 87





	What I See When I Look at You

“Centralize the civil service examination system, focus it at Garrag Mach. We have the facilities in place, the established educators, and its central to Fodlan. Holding it at one location would lower the windfall to,” Edelgard subconsciously hid her need to count out her long division on her hands with taps instead of fingers. Not that I hadn’t noticed, or reasoned out the numbers, but I’m polite enough to stay silent. As is Hubert, for certain, though he always waited on her easily. “Only about three thousand silver marks per season worth of additional funding. Growth expectations put that safely within our budget after two years, we can fiance for the time being.”

Edelgard’s smile seemed confident but the tired bags under her eyes showed the truth of it. Just happy to have an answer and free herself for some sleep. We all would be. Ingrid was barely holding together, and Hubert had intelligently taken naps when internal security was not on the council meeting docket, and now that I think about it I’m pretty sure his silent patience might just be that. Outside of the four of us, no one left was either awake or present on the Imperial Council. 

I’m always willing to stay up, it was second nature. When life moves at a sprint and long term health wasn’t a concern there isn’t much point in me not. Old habits considering I’ve becoming something approximating normal.

“Its a sound plan, the rich guild masters and land holding ex-nobles will fair with some grumbling. They can stay in nice inns, educated at home, and I’m sure the Empire can afford missing all the brilliance of every potential bureaucrat who can’t afford the trip and stay languishing in poverty, undiscovered.” I’ve never been sure why I’m so quick to frustration whenever someone is taking the easy way out of a problem, but my twenties hadn’t seen the trait diminishes. I am Lysithea, the Empire’s Wisdom after all, not her kindness. “We need to nationalize the education system  _ not _ centralize a boarding school for new nobles. The institutes we build in the country can test and feed in the bureaucracy locally and leave no talent undiscovered.”

“At the Empire’s dime, when our armies starve in the field hunting those slithering rats, I’m sure they’ll be so thankful you taught strangers math,” Hubert proved awake after all, and his secret war an ever consuming financial maw. 

“Long term solutions beget long term results,” I snapped back. It often seemed he existed to kick my counsel to death. 

“She’s not wrong,” Ingrid offered slowly, a shaky exhausted tenner to their voice. The Wolf of Galatea prefered to stay clear of matters they determined outside their expertise, barring at times a word or two about what argument managed to be more convincing.

It was always mine, as I made sure Hubert knew.

“Stop barking you two, I’m not disagreeing, just reminding you of the bigger problem,” Hubert begun, leaving us to continue.

“War is expensive and reconstruction more so, we’re aware, but the numbers don’t align,” Edelgard cupped her stress inflamed cheeks, the pink showing just how tight she clenched her jaw when tax rolls lined her table. Her hair was splitting out of the buns she wore on formal affairs, slipping lose into the way I remembered from school. A beautiful mint color so light one untrained eye might think it was alabaster white.

That color made for a complicated feeling tussling in my gut. Attraction is an odd bedfellow with unsatisfied rage.

We all wanted to begin some argument to get this over with, but Edelgard’s sighed, a single breathe called us to listen. She always possessed that sort of power. Edelgard never needed to be loud to be heard. The council could not resist bending over backwards to hear every word whenever she spoke.

“Sir Ingrid, please go to bed. First thing in the morning you will fly with five riders to Garreg Mach, ask Freya to report how the auction is going. Church lands had to have been worth something, shift the funds to a new facility in each former capital for early education and bureaucratic training. Hubert, have someone write up a rit to increase taxes on inheritance, forge it so it appears like I signed it five months ago, that should squeeze some funds from the best off. It’ll be less than those ‘nice inns’ would have cost the rich in total. Council dismissed.” 

Orders given in the court of the Flame Emperor were not ignored. Ingrid provided a bow before departure, Hubert a shallow tilt of reverence he reserved for no other living being on earth, and me, I stayed to the Emperor’s right, shifting only the economic growth numbers on my desk.

“You can go to sleep now Lys.”

“It’s not enough money, El.”

“I know!” Edelgard tilted her head down, staring into the numbers with the same glare that killed God as if it would change Mathematics itself. If anything could. “We’re underwater, dismantling the church and the apparatus that imprisoned all our lives also meant retiring the bureaucracy system that administered it, and we don’t have a brainwashed nation to donate away the price point.”

“You can’t break the world with an Axe, say it’s meritocratic now and be done with the whole thing.” Just as before, I don’t really know why I was getting annoyed. Edelgard knew, she always knew, she was obsessed with it. “We accepted that so now, there has to a way to solve this, the right way.” 

I stood if only to take the winter layer I had on and give it to Edelgard. Not that the fur lined coat would do much to protect her from political realities, but perhaps… Maybe I couldn’t give to my Emperor much of worth tonight anyways. Maybe it's just an excuse to rest a hand on the shoulders that decided they alone could lift the world.

Edelgard as if possessed for all the sense it made to me, decompressed at the touch. Her back slouched. Her breath released. It was funny, she was always so short, El. Her height stunted when… when contemptible men did contemptible things. Yet she always  _ felt _ tall. Mighty. Impossible to look down on. This was one of those moments, rare and somewhat precious where Edelgard looked up at me and I realize the deceptive truth of that mismatched power of personality. Something that made my heart take a tumble around in its cage. 

I’m actually taller than her.

“I know,” she whispered, “I worry my resolve may have lost its finer edge. I’m becoming weak in my old age aren’t I?”

“You’re twenty five, if anything we’re too young,” I felt myself naturally, honestly, smile, “If you let your resolve rust over, it would still be sharper than steel. Not that I would let you, neither of us are off the hook until your ideals are reality. Luckily, you have me.”

My hand squeezed her imperial shoulder. Edelgard’s head was tilted, staring up to match those purple eyes with the still red lenses of my own. I wanted to tell her how unstoppable she was, how together they had conquered Saints. The holy silver mark would be nothing to us. Yet when she smiled despite the bags haunting her eyes and all my words evaporated into mist. She let a gloved hand clasp mine, sending another panicked shutter through me.

“You know what I see when I look at you?” Edelgard asked breaking a rumbling silence between us. I could tell what she was really looking at, the thin strips of black that had begun to restore day by day from albino white of my hair, “Proof. Vindication that for all the evil, all this frustration, it will always be worth it. Lets go to the kitchen and steal some cake. I want to hear how you’ve been Lys, I’ve been so busy… I’m sorry.”

I felt the tendons of my jaw latch it shut like the source of my frustration was somewhere between my teeth. I detested the thought of giving in and doing exactly what I really wanted. I would  _ love  _ to stay up a few more minutes into the night, just the two of us, sweetness on our tongues and lacing our words. Down a few drinks too. Let ourselves become irresponsible. Childish fancies.

And I hated more that Edelgard guessed exactly that's what I really wanted, like a placating mother. 

“You don’t need to baby me.” 

“What?” Edelgard blinked away the wave of confusion, but it didn’t stop my tantrum.

“I’m not a child that needs to be put to bed with sweets while the adult stays up to work.”

“I didn’t mean that way,” it was Edelgard’s turn to clench and straighten and let hands fall to her side and peel hair from the face so she could see unfiltered with the eyes that saw to the death of kings. “I am not treating you like a child, I dismissed everyone. I wanted  _ levity  _ with you Lys, before-”

“Before you work on a new proposal for me to Validate, the sweet child you saved. Someone you keep around to gawk at your glory!”

“That is not what I said,” Edelgard did not hesitate to stand then so we could stare each other down. Not as Emperor and Advisor, but peers. In a way I was grateful for that. “You’re putting words in my mouth, the least you can do is tell me where they’re coming from. It’s certainly not tonight.”

It wasn’t.

“If it was just from tonight I wouldn’t be so angry!” That was maybe less honest.

But it wasn’t just tonight, it was seven years. Seven wonderful, terrible years of fighting together. The Axe and The Flame, a team. It was Seven years of gentle head pats and sweet cakes just for me, and stares from Edelgard that saw pairs of siblings long gone. Glances that use to make me feel like family. Glances I grew to love and hate. Glances that did not see me, not fully, not the way I saw her.

“You know what I see when I look at you El? I see The Flame Emperor, God Killer, the  _ real  _ King of Liberation. The one who saved my life, and with my help the woman who has and will change the world! I see the woman who cries in her sleep when she finally drifts. The one who likes to gossip and fawns over cats. I see your multitudes. The many layers of you. I see  _ you _ !” This was the moment I noted, the line of no return when tempers made wise women fools and a heart in love says things too dangerous for even the most daring ears to hear. I was powerless in that regard, powerless to prevent my own self destruction, and it in a way, as every lecture had, felt grand, “So maybe I wish for once El, you saw the  _ woman  _ I am, my many parts. You’d see the woman who has bled for you for the last seven years and who will bleed until I die! The woman whose grown smarter and stronger than the most gifted. The one who cries over letters from my parents and the ghosts of siblings I don’t even know the faces of. I want you to see me El, and reject me or love me, but notice who I am and how I've grown and how I feel. I’m not a child, I never was. I’m one of the women who kills for you; I am one of the women who love you, and I’m the best of them all.”

My voice trailed as I felt the last words drip from them. It's not often that Edelgard doesn’t have something to say, but we’ve found our way to that strange plane of reality. Enough time passes that I begin to feel embarrassment on top of my exhaustion. A part of me screams to run out in a panic, but Lysithea does not run. I survive and I do so with dignity of an orderly retreat. 

“First thing tomorrow, I’ll have a tax proposal to help with the windfall. Am I be excused El?” Figures and formula would provide the space to heal and prepare for the coming rejection, or worse, continuing denial. 

“Lys I...” 

As Edelgard pauses I pull my eyes up to her view. A sick part of me needs to see the full reaction before the mask she wears had time to be repaired. I saw a girl who always looked me straight in the eyes, picking at her red gloves, picking at the wrinkles around her knuckles instead. 

“I understand,” she chances to look at me and with a nod I am dismissed. 

I gather my papers, stand, bow as fitting my station, and depart with dignity so I may cry soundlessly with equal dignity. 

  
  
  


No one really knows the moment they fall asleep. More so for me as my body grew stronger, I grew bolder, and vanished at my desk more often. At some point I had finished my proposal, or given up, I can remember. It was sunny when, i remember seeing the light pierce the purple cloth I hung by the window, adding some variant color to the black and red spectrum of the imperial home. After that I could only guess. I crawled to bed, given the silken sheets I awake in, half dressed so I clearly had some intend to be proper. 

The sun is still up, thank the goddess, not that she’ll accept it from me.

“Anglebert,” I call out, knowing the serving man would be near the door still without anything else for me to fill his time, “Please seek the Emperor, tell her I have the report I promised. I’ll have it delivered post haste.”

“Shall I send for your food to reheated Wisdom?” A silly title, but less of a mouthful than the Official Chief Advisor to the Imperial Council. 

“No, but tell the Emperor she has my thanks.”

The pancakes she had sent me were visible on my table, a smeared mess of syrup and sweet sugar likely too cold now to be considered ideal.

“At once, Wisdom. Oh, and good morning as well.” 

As soon as I hear the steps of his departure I begin my preparation. I could not run a bath, lest I prove how enable I am at getting up in due time. But I could find a new dress, teach the other warlocks you are in fact allowed to have color and frills. There was also the simple matter that a proposal written was not one organized in presentable fashion. My hair needed to be straightened before I strolled into court and heard the tedious clicking noise of pests. Coloring my cheeks as well though that was mostly for me. There was also eating, cold pancakes were still sweet in the morning and there would be little time for breakfast today. Hubert was likely to present a counter proposal. I’d guess a brutal funding plan that would siphan the excess funds to the Those Who Slither war. A good cause, but only one piece of the puzzle that was their continual social revolution. Sometimes I thought for how obsessed he was in her vision he missed the forest for-

“Lys, may I come in?” 

I was caught pancake in mouth and brush half way through my hair, but on reflex I could not help but make a sound of acceptance. After all only El had the audacity to call me that, and no one denies the Emperor I justified.

“Oh, you still have the pancakes, well these may be overkill then,” Edelgard arrived plate of pastries in plater with a side of fragrant tea.

She was as usual a beauty that wore clothes like armored plates. A vibrant velvet dress, but long black leggings and gloves that hid the many marks of their shared surgery and kept the outfit from being in true Enbarr fashion. It did an excellent job of leaving a lump of pancake heavy in my belly, however. Her hair down as well, marking this as a very informal visit which peaked my interest. 

“Good morning, thank you for breakfast,” I tried my best not to be so small before her, swallowed down the bite to show my meal would not be interrupted no matter how grateful I was. Yet outside that show my fork when to my table and my stare to her, not the food regardless of that warm cinnamon smell. 

“Would you prefer I gave you more time?” El asked, surprising me with her restraint. 

“No I needed to give this to you anyways,” I handed her the report, an oversized collections papers. I could only hope she found it mostly readable. 

“You continue to astound Lys,” she puts them aside from now, neatly on my desk before placing the platter for me, “But that matter can wait. We will get back to it I promise you.”

“We don’t need to do this El, I know I was not acting appropriately,” my arm instinctively hugs my body to provide me with a thin protection, “I swear my feelings do not define my loyalty to you. I believe in your ideals, your vision of the future. I am no jilted lover that thinks she  _ deserves,  _ something from you. I just want you to understand me.”

“You do know I listen to everything you say? I know I could rip your heart apart and you would never turn your back on making a difference. We’re going to make sure no one suffers like us ever again. Nothing will break that oath.” The words feel a little like a lecture, but she speaks slowly, even fond and sweet. 

“Everything I say? I’ll remember that when you’re being Stubborn El,” I whisper the joke and am rewarded with that small, but powerful laugh she gives freely to few. 

“Listening and agreeing are not the same. I am definitionally not agreeable,” and people think she’s humorless, those fools don’t know my El, “Which is why it should come as a great shock that I... agree with you.”

“Agree with what exactly?”

“Agree that I haven’t been… seeing you, as you are, I mean,” she took a step towards me, the click of her boots seeming so loud in the moment, “I have lost everything that one could call family. The Black Eagles were as close as it comes. You especially suffered something that no one else can understand, after that well… I always wanted to protect you like the siblings I could not.”

“I don’t need protecting El.”

“You don’t, you’re a strong and proud woman who has faced the darkest parts of this world and turned that trauma into resolve. Another thing that I see myself in. I suppose protecting you was protecting myself. I’m sorry.”

Her hand reached out and held my shoulder lightly. Allowing me space to retreat away if I needed to, but I wouldn’t, even if she didn’t return my feelings. I would not recoil from the truth if Edelgard managed to stand proud in its face.

“I accept, I understand you see me as something close to family,” saying it burned my mouth. Felt like fire.

“That’s not exactly what I mean. The Black Eagles are all family but, this is embarrassing but did you know that I tried dating Dorothea in the Academy days, in secret.” Her eyes faded with the memory looking out into some rosey past given the smile.

“Oh goddess,” I whispered, “He wasn’t lying.”

“Who wasn’t lying?”

Claude. “It’s not important, seeing as she’s Queen of Brigid now, I can guess it didn’t work out?”

“It did not,” she replies her eyes refocusing from that gentle past.

“Because the Black Eagles are family?”

“Because I don’t know how to love, not really,” the admission triggered a blink in me, caught by surprise. Edelgard incapable of love? She loved wildly, she loved her country. She loved and cared about the suffering of people she never knew. She was motivated by love of her dead family. She loved the Black Eagles so much, one could see it break her to drag us into war, “How could I truly love someone when I can’t show them who I am? When I lived a lie? When my past was such agony that I can’t even describe it in a way my lover would understand. The lies hurt her, failing hurt me.” 

“El.”

“Lys, it is not that I don’t want to see you, or that I reject you. Lys I care for you so deeply, uncontrollably. I’m not hiding from us, I’m terrified of us. Terrified of us the way that the sea does, endless and vast. I want to protect you, how can I protect you from me?” She asked with the same flame in her voice when she asked us to go to war. 

“I told you, it’s not your place to protect me. I will suffer anything for you El,” my chest thundered like my old crest of Charon once did, my protective arm ceasing to shield me so I could place my hand over hers and play the gambit of lacing fingers, “And I will survive it, just like I promised.”

Her hand pulled away and I think that was a close as I have ever come to dying, but she did not part long. Edelgard pulled on her right glove slowly and methodically exposing the scarred expanse of it to the air. For the first time ever I saw her hands freely, and not for the last time I would feel them brushed my cheek even as they quake. 

“Then will you permit me the chance to find out what there is to see when I look at you? Take another chance to change our history forever?” Edelgards lips curl as nod.

I take her hand again, this time able to feel the marks and the calluses of axe and pen. Feel the quiver as I gently brush the knuckles to reassure. I had kissed that hand in many a ceremony as her Wisdom, and I kiss it again as something else entirely.

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to shake some old writing muscles and make something. Idk if its any good its def using my weird hyper fragmented style. hope you enjoyed it!


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